Marathon Nutrition: The Third Man’s View

I’m sure I’m not the only one who enjoyed the two contrasting articles about nutrition by the Blogfather himself, and Steve Runner in the other corner. However, I can’t help but disagree with both of them, which is why I thought I might add my own thoughts to the debate, just to muddle the water even further.

I’ve read an awful lot of books about running, but I’m most definitely not a physiologist. All the following thoughts are my own amateurish interpretation of what I’ve read about what’s going on in your body during long distance running.

Let’s start with the glaring mistakes that our two heroes have made. Steve seems to think that because marathon runners tend to have low body fat, there is not enough energy on board to fire the craft over the whole distance. This is utter nonsense. Even the slimmest of runner has enough fat reserves to keep running for hours and hours on end – at least from an energy point of view. Believe me, you’ll never run out of fat.

But I also disagree with Mark about his marathon fuelling strategy. Like Steve, I think his recent PR was due to his solid training, and not the fact that he went “au naturelle”. It might have been challenge, Mark, but I bet you might have shaved another few seconds or even minutes off your time had you taken some carbohydrates on board during racing.

In contrast to what many people believe, recent research has shown that the muscles don’t actually run out of glycogen during a marathon. Scientists who took samples from runners after they had completed a race found that the muscles stores had not been completely depleted. So what’s causing the wall then? It’s low blood sugar (hypoglycemia), not low muscle sugar. Your brain needs glycogen to work, and takes this from the blood. The blood sugar level is replenished from glycogen stored in the liver. Once those stores run out, you hit the wall, no matter how much glycogen you’ve got left in your muscles. That’s where our esteemed Running Blogfather is wrong, in my view. Ingestion of carbohydrates during exercise does not upset your bodys natural fat-burning capacity. Instead the added glycogen will find its way into the bloodstream, from where it can be used to fire the brain, thus avoiding the dreaded hypoglycemia, or “hitting the wall”, as it might be better known.

Both Steve and Mark mentioned their own experiences to make their point, so I’ll follow the same example. A bit over two months ago, in April, I ran my first ever ultra. It was a 39.3-mile road race, and I had decided to try and run every single step of it, without walking breaks. According to most peoples views, I should have hit the wall after 20 or so miles, about halfway along the course, but I never did. In fact, I still felt strong at the end, and I still could have run a good bit further had the race distance been longer.

So what had gone so right for me? Firstly, I had trained my body to preserve glycogen stores and burn more fat, similar to Mark’s view. I always run in the morning, and I always went out without breakfast, I didn’t take any Gatorade, or gels, or bars, just simple water. It might seem harsh, and it goes against common wisdom, but the truth is that I never felt like I was running out of energy, not even at the beginning of that training regime. I’ve come to the conclusion that the previous day’s dinner is entirely sufficient to sustain you even for a 22-mile training run the next morning. But, unlike Mark, I made sure I ingested plenty of carbohydrates during the actual race. This was my first ultra, and I did not know how I would hold out, but I’m glad to say I had a great race, a fantastic experience, and I can recommend my training regime and running tactics to anyone who wants to try a similar race. It certainly worked for me.

That’s it. If you’re still with me, thank you. I hope you found some interesting tidbits of information in my rant. Just do yourself a favour and dont believe everything you read from Steve or Mark.